“Just because you have new miracle machines does not mean most people will benefit,” writes journalist Andrew Singer, looking to the Industrial Revolution for lessons on AI’s potential disruption of labour. Tracing how power looms devastated early 19th-century English cottage weavers—wages fell by half in five years—Singer argues that history’s pattern of concentrated gains needn’t repeat. His conclusion: handled right, AI might restore the middle-skill jobs that computerization hollowed out rather than deepen the wealth divide.